Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress. To those who fully admit the immortality of the human soul, the destruction of our world will not appear so dreadful.

Note 2.This survival of the fittest which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.Herbert Spencer: Principles of Biology. Indirect Equilibration. [back]